Monthly Archives: April 2017

In 1907, Emilio Iafrate decided to take a journey that would ultimately open the door to his family’s legacy in the United States. His son Angelo would go on to start numerous construction related companies throughout the United States.

In 1997, Angelo expanded the family business to Florida opening a new branch called Angelo’s Recycled Materials (Angelo’s RM). Angelo’s Recycled Materials has since expanded to 9 locations throughout central Florida and employs 250 people.

Angelo’s has been a ReedTMS client, primarily working with Joe Cleary, for over a year now. We have helped them on various projects including moving concrete blocks from Tampa International Airport to their Lutz facility, hauling barrier wall which was repurposed into road base for the I-75 expansion project, and moving light posts out of MacDill Airforce Base.

Angelo’s RM features the largest privately owned class 3 landfill with borrow pit, multiple material recovery facilities, and innovative concreate processing facilities. They are a fully integrated solid waste company offering the collection, recycling, and disposal of construction/demolition debris and CLIII materials. They also provide construction industries with recycled materials that preserve natural resources and reduce cost to these projects.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has set a goal of eliminating 1 billion tons of emissions from its supply chain by 2030, an effort dubbed Project Gigaton that will focus on reducing fuel use by suppliers and customers. The retail giant announced the plan during its annual Milestone Summit in Bentonville, Ark., on April 19.

“We are proud of the improvements we’ve made in reducing our own emissions, but we aim to do more,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has been investing in solar energy and gets about 25% of its global energy from renewable sources. It also has managed to double the efficiency of its store delivery fleet in the United States from 2005 to 2015 by buying trucks that get better fuel economy, reducing the number of miles traveled and packing more goods in its trailers through better planning and new packaging.

The company is also conducting a study of the effects of e-commerce on emissions with more customers picking up items in stores or having goods delivered to the home. It’s unclear how the emissions plan might affect freight carriers that deliver to Wal-Mart. The company is asking suppliers to focus on energy, agriculture, waste, packaging, deforestation and product use and design to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Wal-Mart’s initiative drew praise from a number of environmental groups and businesses. “Supply chains are the new frontier of sustainability,” said Carter Roberts, CEO of the World Wildlife Fund. “The journey products take from source to shelf will collectively shape our planet’s future.” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said Wal-Mart is showing “real leadership.” “With the federal government largely on the sidelines,” Krupp said, “the private sector is stepping up to advance solutions that will help business, people and nature thrive.”

McDonald’s has launched a US campaign fronted by actress Mindy Kaling omitting any mention of its brand name. Instead, Kaling encourages viewers to simply do a Google search of “that place where Coke tastes so good”.

The fast food chain has created a new YouTube page to launch the ads titled ‘That place where Coke tastes so good’.The page has absolutely no reference to the brand either.

Mindy Kaling, who donned a yellow dress and stood in front of a red backdrop in the ad to embody the brand’s colours, posted a cryptic tweet to celebrate the launch of the campaign

It come less than a week after rival Burger King triggered Google Homes throughout America by prompting the device to describe the Whopper Burger. The ad forced Google to reprogram the devices, which have now been reactivated to respond to the prompt.

It also follows the controversial Pepsi ad featuring Kendall Jenner which was saturated with brand references and logos before being axed.

Republican Joel Anderson has introduced SB 713 in the California state senate, a bill that would if enacted amend California’s lemon law to include commercial trucks in its matrix of protections for new-unit buyers experiencing chronic malfunctions in the early life of the vehicle. The bill, which originated in part with the Western States Trucking Association (WSTA) in response to member complaints about undue downtime with emissions-equipment failures, would make California one of only two states that offer significant legal protections to commercial new-truck buyers (as is somewhat well-known, Wisconsin’s lemon law is unique nationally in covering commercial trucks in a significant way).

Is large truck lemon law needed?

There’s only a couple effective lemon laws in the country that actually provide protection from “defective” Class 8s for buyers. If you’ve as yet missed …

“Like a lot of states, California has a lemon law that protects car buyers,” notes WSTA Director of Governmental Affairs Joe Rajkovacz, called the Tanner Consumer Protection Act. Originally a native of Wisconsin, Rajkovacz is well aware that his native state’s “lemon law extends to purchasers of new commercial vehicles.”

SB 713 would modify the current California lemon law to newly apply to trucks heavier than 10,000 lbs. and under the operation of a business, without size exclusions, up to 18 months from the date of delivery or 100,000 miles of operation, whichever comes first. For the lemon law to come into play, the law requires at least one of the following three conditions to have been met:

A maintenance issue covered under warranty “results in a condition that is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if the vehicle is driven and the [issue] has been subject to repair two or more times by the manufacturer or its agents,” with direct buyer notification to the manufacturer of the issue.

Four attempts to address the same maintenance issue, with buyer notification to the manufacturer.

Repair downtime of more than 30 calendar days since vehicle delivery, with some other conditions.

Overdrivecovered the national picture around lemon law in 2011, in part in the context of the then-increasing “maintenance nightmare” scenarios, in the words of one source, some new-truck buyers were experiencing with emissions-system equipment. In some ways, little has changed in that respect.

Small fleet owner Bill Frerichs of Frerichs Freight Lines, based in Illinois near St. Louis, Mo., wrote in last month about an issue with one of two new tractors he’d purchased in 2015, “one in June, one in December, exact same truck” in terms of make and model, he said. “The one delivered in June has been in the dealer’s shop more than 50 days for abnormal major issues while the second has been in one time for a steering column recall.” In terms of the first truck, he added, “I don’t trust it, nor does the driver.”

The problem unit stood at about 130,000 miles in 18 months when Frerichs wrote in. Given his state’s lemon law doesn’t offer buyer protection from such situations, unless he can work it out with the dealer he’s “stuck with it for the next two-three years,” he notes. “Every day it’s in the shop, I rent a truck for $125 per day, which is nearly triple what I’m paying for my own truck.”

In California, Rajkovacz notes, another wrinkle in the situation is recent California Air Resources Board meetings that have broached the subject of potentially mandating expanded warranty coverage periods for emissions equipment to force manufacturers to fail-proof sensors and other equipment more substantially. “In the end, it’s kind of a good deal if CARB moves forward with EPA to extend warranty coverage on emissions components,” Rajkovacz says, “but that does nothing for a truck owner that’s in the shop multiple times throughout the year” and experiences significant downtime. “‘Mr. owner-operator, we won’t get your truck to you in 10 days,’” Rajkovacz says.

Expanding lemon law protections could give such buyers a recourse in the worst of maintenance situations, Rajkovacz says.

Truck manufacturers contacted for this story either offered no comment or did not respond in time to be included.

Emissions system: Newer trucks’ potential handicap

Almost four in 10 owner-operators buying used trucks report emissions problems for 2010 and newer equipment, three in 10 for 2007-’09, as their biggest maintenance …

“We understand it’s a David v. Goliath fight,” Rajkovacz says.”There have been other attempts in the past that have been pulled back” as truck makers and others have flexed influence.

Currently scheduled for May 9 according to the page for the bill on California’s legislative information website, a public hearing in Sacramento should at least expand lawmakers’ awareness of the issues. “We’re going to be very dependent on new-vehicle owners coming out and telling their downtime horror stories,” Rajkovacz says. “There is resistance to believing that any of that is true. We’re going to have to do some significant arranging and prodding to get people to show up for this.”

If they don’t, he believes, it could be years before there’s another chance to take the idea forward.

If Tesla were to garner 10 percent of the new truck market in the U.S., it would be worth $2.5 billion in annual revenue or as many as 70,000 base Model 3s, the analysts said. (Tesla plans to start producing a Model 3 compact sedan later this year.)

It may be about services:

Trucking could allow Tesla to enter the services market, bringing sustained revenues. Tesla could conceivably sell a truck without a battery (thereby significantly lowering the upfront cost) and offer battery swapping as an alternative to putting a large battery in the truck, they said.

“We estimate that if Tesla charges $0.25/mile to lease the battery, this could be a big win for both trucking carriers and Tesla,” the analysts wrote.

The analysts estimate that motor carriers could slash fuel spending in half – from 50 cents a mile today – with an electric drive system. They believe offering battery leasing for electric big rigs and a battery swapping service could generate $7.5 billion in annual revenues if it Tesla can get 10 percent of the truck market.

It won’t cost a lot to dive in:

Entering the trucking industry may not be particularly challenging, they said.

“We estimate that much, but not all, of the battery and autonomous driving technology needed for the truck could be shared with the passenger car division,” they wrote.

A production rate of just 25,000 trucks annually would give Tesla 10 percent of new big rig sales, but would fit into its existing vehicle and battery factory without too much incremental investment.

One cost would be the build out of a network of 1,500 battery swapping stations along U.S. highways. It would be separate from the passenger car charging network Tesla already has. The analysts estimate that Tesla would spend $1.7 billion to enter the heavy-duty truck segment, including the swapping stations.

Such a business might add about $5 billion to Tesla’s $50 billion stock market valuation, according to the Morgan Stanly analysts.

What does this mean for the Trucking industry?

“We believe an autonomous, electric truck can be a game changer for trucking carriers and by significantly lowering operating costs, improving productivity and even driving industry consolidation,” the analyst wrote.

They estimated that an autonomous, electric truck could be 60 to 70 percent less expensive to operate compared with a human-driven diesel big rig. The cost savings come from drivers, fuel, maintenance and insurance.

The analysts said they have talked to motor carriers that are open to using such trucks made by new, non-incumbent manufacturers “as long as the performance, service and operating costs are superior.”

“In fact, we would not be surprised if Tesla revealed large carrier and shipper partners during its truck